Friday, August 1, 2014

When I first discovered forró, I mined the catalog of Luiz Gonzaga looking for gems, which were numerous. After Gonzaga, I wasn't sure who the major players were. Fortunately, a vast number of LPs were available on forroemvinil to preview. I particularly enjoyed Jackson do Pandeiro's early 70s work on CBS, so I sought other artists that recorded for the label. I came to learn that Abdias, head of A&R at CBS, had poached the lions-share of forró royalty from labels like Fontana, Cantagalo, Philips, Maraca, Sertanejo and Mocambo. The mid 1960s through mid 1970s were a wonderful time at CBS. Every record usually had at least one great track. The songs were beautifully recorded and mixed in stereo. Desafio, meaning challenge, was a dual album. Full LPs featuring two or three artists seemed to be in vogue in the late 60s and early 70s, particularly on Fontana and CBS. Half of the songs on Desafio featured vocals by Silva and the other half were by Julião. Coração Descontrolado is an Elino Julião vocal number. When they shared an LP cover, these characters often seemed to be playing pool, cards, chatting up the lassies or getting into brawls. Manly stuff.

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About ForróLPGringo

Welcome to Forró LP Gringo. Forró is a banner term covering a variety of northeastern Brazilian rhythms and styles, including Baião, Côco, Rojão, Xaxado, Xote and Arrasta-Pé. Forró is a massive popular music genre in Brazil. It may also be the least known and exported Brazilian music. This blog was created to share northeastern Brazilian music and provide some context for the releases. As my collection has grown, my focus has shifted from cherry-picking the best tracks from long out-of-print LPs to preserving great music that has never been reissued.